Update 12:10  Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The US intends to negotiate a legally binding protocol on cluster munitions under the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), says Harold Hongju Koh, legal advisor to the US Department of State.

Koh told a meeting on the Geneva Conventions at the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) Monday 9 November that the US, under President Barack Obama, has taken several steps to strengthen its commitment to the Geneva Conventions. These include closing Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and revising US law covering military commissions so that they cannot consider evidence obtained using torture or inhuman treatment.

The US is one of only a handful of major countries that has not yet signed the CCW, negotiated in 1980, but it is credited with pushing to limit them. The CCW is the umbrella international protocol under which demining efforts have been stepped up.

Links to other sites: CCW site, ICRC, US Mission in Geneva

Posted by :: Ellen Wallace on 10 November 2009 at 13:02 | permalink
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News story, GenevaLunch, 10 November 2009.

Filed under: International organizations

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